Data Backup Digest

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are making headlines around the world as of late. Touted as a way of collecting, sharing, and preserving digital art, NFTs provide a blockchain-based form of ownership authentication that is easily tracked and verified. Given the sudden popularity of NFTs, it’s no surprise that customer relationship management (CRM) platforms like Salesforce are entering the market.

What is an NFT?

An NFT is perhaps best compared to a digital fingerprint for a piece of digital data. This data could contain nearly anything, from digital art to music and, as such, is uniquely identifiable. Established NFTs can be bought and sold, whereas new NFTs need to be minted through the blockchain – and this is exactly where Salesforce’s new platform comes into play.

Salesforce and NFTs

Available in a closed pilot program, the Salesforce NFT Cloud is meant to serve as a centralized point of minting, selling, and managing NFTs for their own business purposes. It essentially gives established businesses an easy point-of-entry to the NFT market and the blockchain as a whole.

However, the Salesforce NFT Cloud doesn’t support the traditional proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain that is often seen with major forms of cryptocurrency. Not only does this blockchain require enormous amounts of computational power, but they result in substantial energy bills and carbon footprints, too.

Instead, the Salesforce NFT Cloud utilizes proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain technologies. This method virtually eliminates the substantial energy costs associated with the traditional blockchain while simultaneously giving users the ability to monitor their own carbon footprint – all without ever leaving the Salesforce NFT Cloud.

Salesforce is also utilizing smart contracts – blockchain-based programs that function automatically once its conditions have been met – to mitigate many of the security concerns surrounding the traditional blockchain and cryptocurrency as a whole.

A statement made by Salesforce reads, in part: “The industry is continuing to address sustainability issues as its technology evolves, as we’re seeing with new and upcoming PoS blockchains. Based on current models, it is believed that PoS blockchains drastically reduce the energy consumption of current-state PoW blockchains by as much as 99.95%. Additionally, there is significant electronic waste associated with PoW blockchain use (due to frequent upgrading of equipment) that is eliminated by switching to PoS, which does not rely on physical hardware.”

Their statement continued on by saying: “At Salesforce, we have an opportunity to lead with our values, and shape positive norms and benchmarks for using NFT and blockchain technology sustainably. That’s why our NFT Cloud pilot will not support proof-of-work blockchains.”

However, this doesn’t necessarily equate to increased security. In fact, there are a plethora of security concerns that need to be addressed, including the potential for fraud. Nonetheless, the team at Salesforce is hopeful that this helps them avoid some of the controversy and criticism that’s typically seen when discussing the blockchain in general.

The Salesforce NFT Cloud

Details surrounding the Salesforce NFT Cloud are sparse. While we know that they are currently testing the platform in a closed pilot program, we don’t know when – or even if – the Salesforce NFT Cloud will ever be available to the general public.